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Here’s the plan—each week, I will blog about a different song, focusing, usually, on the lyrics, but also on some other aspects of the song, including its overall impact—a truly subjective thing. Therefore, the best part, I would hope, would not be anything in particular that I might have to say, but rather, the conversation that may happen via the comments over the course of time—and since all the posts will stay up, you can feel free to weigh in any time on any of the songs! With Grateful Dead lyrics, there’s always a new and different take on what they bring up for each listener, it seems. (I’ll consider requests for particular songs—just private message me!)

Robert Hunter: “’Tennessee Jed’ originated in Barcelona, Spain. Topped up on vino tinto, I composed it aloud to the sound of a jaw harp twanged between echoing building faces by someone strolling half a block ahead of me in the late summer twilight.”

What a perfectly-framed vignette—it gets across the place, the time, the season, Hunter’s state of mind, the music in the air, and the light, and we are there. And yet, the resulting lyric seems so incongruous! It’s utter Americana, replete with references to and obscure 1940s radio show and characters who seem to have stepped from a novel set in the rural South. It’s striking, though, that it’s a song about homesickness, and maybe that’s where it came from for Hunter—wanting to be in that place which is where he would rather be than anywhere else.

Our narrator is truly down and out. He’s in jail, or at least on a chain gang, at the start of the song, and things don’t exactly go uphill from there. It’s the fate of poor people down the centures: “rich man step on my poor head...” with the result that respite can only be sought in drink, gambling, and man’s best friend.

The obscure 1940s radio show, “Tennessee Jed,” ran from 1945 to 1947. It was sponsored by a bread company (Tip-Top Bread), which seems to tie in with the line “when you get back you better butter my bread.” (Accident? Coincidence? I think not!) The titular character, Jed (a handy guy with a sixshooter) inhabits a western landscape with characters by the name of Cookstove, sharpshooter Steve Martin, Sheriff Anderson, Chief Grey Eagle, Gideon Gordon, and others. Among his other do-gooder exploits, Jed (who also sings) foils a plot to overthrow the US Government by a gang planning to re-start the Civil War (which, at the time, was only about as far in the past, relatively, as World War II is for us—so, sort of a Captain America-era story, to put it in context).

Oddly, though, the song title and the character in the song don’t exactly match up. The line in the song is “let’s head back to Tennessee, Jed,” not “let’s head back to Tenneesee Jed.” So it’s a play on the radio show character’s name—for those who might get it. Just in case you happened to tune in back then.

“Tennessee Jed” was first performed at that October 19, 1971 show at Northrup Auditorium at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, along with five other firsts: “Jack Straw,” “Mexicali Blues,” “Comes a Time,” “One More Saturday Night,” and “Ramble On Rose.” It immediately became a staple of the touring repertoire, appearing in every year for a total of 433 performances. Its final performance came on July 8, 1995, at the band’s penultimate show at Soldier Field in Chicago.

It appeared on Europe ’72, one of that never-recorded-in-a-studio set of songs I’ve written about before. It was covered, memorably, by Levon Helm on his Electric Dirt album in 2009. From the Levon Helm official website:

Electric Dirt’s numerous high points start right at the top, with a rousing rendition of the Grateful Dead’s “Tennessee Jed.” Campbell and Williams spent a good part of 2008 on the road with Dead bassist Phil Lesh, including some shows on which Helm and Lesh appeared together. “There was some real comradeship going on,” Campbell points out, “so we thought, wouldn’t it be great if we could find a Grateful Dead tune that Levon could do? ‘Tennessee Jed’ was always one of my favorite Dead songs, and I thought Levon could actually be Tennessee Jed. And it fit like a glove.”

I love the music Garcia came up with for “Tennessee Jed.” The catchy descending motif, and then, in the solo, the wordless bridge that explodes into a brand-new space, right before our very ears. I never get tired of that. From Hunter’s description of the circumstances of composing the lyric, I get the feeling that the descending phrase might have been suggested by Hunter—he often, even mostly, it seems, composed his lyrics with music, which Garcia would then, most of the time, discard in order to start anew. (There are some notable exceptions, where Hunter’s music was retained--especially “It Must Have Been the Roses.” And “Easy Wind.”) It seems like a twangy little phrase that could’ve come along with the rhythm of the lyrics, and could have been suggested by the sound of a jaw harp.

Then there’s the rhythm, which falls into that “shuffle” category of Grateful Dead songs, an easygoing, gently bouncing kind of beat that is easy to move to, and suited to a variety of tempos. Sometimes the band seemed to be asking “just how slow can we play this one?” This is completely unscientific (a research project waiting to happen), but a spot check of playing times from various performances of the song over the years shows a variation from 7:15 to 8:40 in duration. Not all of that can be accounted for by extended jamming, since the jam was a fairly constant duration of measures, as far as I can tell without intense scrutiny. So I would attribute the wide disparity in playing times to a variation in tempo.

Finally, to me, this song is about wanting to go home. It’s one of many songs with that motif in the Dead’s repertoire, and is the subject of an essay by Wally Bubelis on the Annotated Lyrics website.

Here’s the plan—each week, I will blog about a different song, focusing, usually, on the lyrics, but also on some other aspects of the song, including its overall impact—a truly subjective thing. Therefore, the best part, I would hope, would not be anything in particular that I might have to say, but rather, the conversation that may happen via the comments over the course of time—and since all the posts will stay up, you can feel free to weigh in any time on any of the songs! With Grateful Dead lyrics, there’s always a new and different take on what they bring up for each listener, it seems. (I’ll consider requests for particular songs—just private message me!)

Robert Hunter: “’Tennessee Jed’ originated in Barcelona, Spain. Topped up on vino tinto, I composed it aloud to the sound of a jaw harp twanged between echoing building faces by someone strolling half a block ahead of me in the late summer twilight.”

What a perfectly-framed vignette—it gets across the place, the time, the season, Hunter’s state of mind, the music in the air, and the light, and we are there. And yet, the resulting lyric seems so incongruous! It’s utter Americana, replete with references to and obscure 1940s radio show and characters who seem to have stepped from a novel set in the rural South. It’s striking, though, that it’s a song about homesickness, and maybe that’s where it came from for Hunter—wanting to be in that place which is where he would rather be than anywhere else.

Our narrator is truly down and out. He’s in jail, or at least on a chain gang, at the start of the song, and things don’t exactly go uphill from there. It’s the fate of poor people down the centures: “rich man step on my poor head...” with the result that respite can only be sought in drink, gambling, and man’s best friend.

The obscure 1940s radio show, “Tennessee Jed,” ran from 1945 to 1947. It was sponsored by a bread company (Tip-Top Bread), which seems to tie in with the line “when you get back you better butter my bread.” (Accident? Coincidence? I think not!) The titular character, Jed (a handy guy with a sixshooter) inhabits a western landscape with characters by the name of Cookstove, sharpshooter Steve Martin, Sheriff Anderson, Chief Grey Eagle, Gideon Gordon, and others. Among his other do-gooder exploits, Jed (who also sings) foils a plot to overthrow the US Government by a gang planning to re-start the Civil War (which, at the time, was only about as far in the past, relatively, as World War II is for us—so, sort of a Captain America-era story, to put it in context).

Oddly, though, the song title and the character in the song don’t exactly match up. The line in the song is “let’s head back to Tennessee, Jed,” not “let’s head back to Tenneesee Jed.” So it’s a play on the radio show character’s name—for those who might get it. Just in case you happened to tune in back then.

“Tennessee Jed” was first performed at that October 19, 1971 show at Northrup Auditorium at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, along with five other firsts: “Jack Straw,” “Mexicali Blues,” “Comes a Time,” “One More Saturday Night,” and “Ramble On Rose.” It immediately became a staple of the touring repertoire, appearing in every year for a total of 433 performances. Its final performance came on July 8, 1995, at the band’s penultimate show at Soldier Field in Chicago.

It appeared on Europe ’72, one of that never-recorded-in-a-studio set of songs I’ve written about before. It was covered, memorably, by Levon Helm on his Electric Dirt album in 2009. From the Levon Helm official website:

Electric Dirt’s numerous high points start right at the top, with a rousing rendition of the Grateful Dead’s “Tennessee Jed.” Campbell and Williams spent a good part of 2008 on the road with Dead bassist Phil Lesh, including some shows on which Helm and Lesh appeared together. “There was some real comradeship going on,” Campbell points out, “so we thought, wouldn’t it be great if we could find a Grateful Dead tune that Levon could do? ‘Tennessee Jed’ was always one of my favorite Dead songs, and I thought Levon could actually be Tennessee Jed. And it fit like a glove.”

I love the music Garcia came up with for “Tennessee Jed.” The catchy descending motif, and then, in the solo, the wordless bridge that explodes into a brand-new space, right before our very ears. I never get tired of that. From Hunter’s description of the circumstances of composing the lyric, I get the feeling that the descending phrase might have been suggested by Hunter—he often, even mostly, it seems, composed his lyrics with music, which Garcia would then, most of the time, discard in order to start anew. (There are some notable exceptions, where Hunter’s music was retained--especially “It Must Have Been the Roses.” And “Easy Wind.”) It seems like a twangy little phrase that could’ve come along with the rhythm of the lyrics, and could have been suggested by the sound of a jaw harp.

Then there’s the rhythm, which falls into that “shuffle” category of Grateful Dead songs, an easygoing, gently bouncing kind of beat that is easy to move to, and suited to a variety of tempos. Sometimes the band seemed to be asking “just how slow can we play this one?” This is completely unscientific (a research project waiting to happen), but a spot check of playing times from various performances of the song over the years shows a variation from 7:15 to 8:40 in duration. Not all of that can be accounted for by extended jamming, since the jam was a fairly constant duration of measures, as far as I can tell without intense scrutiny. So I would attribute the wide disparity in playing times to a variation in tempo.

Finally, to me, this song is about wanting to go home. It’s one of many songs with that motif in the Dead’s repertoire, and is the subject of an essay by Wally Bubelis on the Annotated Lyrics website.

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Here’s the plan—each week, I will blog about a different song, focusing, usually, on the lyrics, but also on some other aspects of the song, including its overall impact—a truly subjective thing. Therefore, the best part, I would hope, would not be anything in particular that I might have to say, but rather, the conversation that may happen via the comments over the course of time—and since all the posts will stay up, you can feel free to weigh in any time on any of the songs! With Grateful Dead lyrics, there’s always a new and different take on what they bring up for each listener, it seems. (I’ll consider requests for particular songs—just private message me!)

Robert Hunter: “’Tennessee Jed’ originated in Barcelona, Spain. Topped up on vino tinto, I composed it aloud to the sound of a jaw harp twanged between echoing building faces by someone strolling half a block ahead of me in the late summer twilight.”

What a perfectly-framed vignette—it gets across the place, the time, the season, Hunter’s state of mind, the music in the air, and the light, and we are there. And yet, the resulting lyric seems so incongruous! It’s utter Americana, replete with references to and obscure 1940s radio show and characters who seem to have stepped from a novel set in the rural South. It’s striking, though, that it’s a song about homesickness, and maybe that’s where it came from for Hunter—wanting to be in that place which is where he would rather be than anywhere else.

Our narrator is truly down and out. He’s in jail, or at least on a chain gang, at the start of the song, and things don’t exactly go uphill from there. It’s the fate of poor people down the centures: “rich man step on my poor head...” with the result that respite can only be sought in drink, gambling, and man’s best friend.

The obscure 1940s radio show, “Tennessee Jed,” ran from 1945 to 1947. It was sponsored by a bread company (Tip-Top Bread), which seems to tie in with the line “when you get back you better butter my bread.” (Accident? Coincidence? I think not!) The titular character, Jed (a handy guy with a sixshooter) inhabits a western landscape with characters by the name of Cookstove, sharpshooter Steve Martin, Sheriff Anderson, Chief Grey Eagle, Gideon Gordon, and others. Among his other do-gooder exploits, Jed (who also sings) foils a plot to overthrow the US Government by a gang planning to re-start the Civil War (which, at the time, was only about as far in the past, relatively, as World War II is for us—so, sort of a Captain America-era story, to put it in context).

Oddly, though, the song title and the character in the song don’t exactly match up. The line in the song is “let’s head back to Tennessee, Jed,” not “let’s head back to Tenneesee Jed.” So it’s a play on the radio show character’s name—for those who might get it. Just in case you happened to tune in back then.

“Tennessee Jed” was first performed at that October 19, 1971 show at Northrup Auditorium at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, along with five other firsts: “Jack Straw,” “Mexicali Blues,” “Comes a Time,” “One More Saturday Night,” and “Ramble On Rose.” It immediately became a staple of the touring repertoire, appearing in every year for a total of 433 performances. Its final performance came on July 8, 1995, at the band’s penultimate show at Soldier Field in Chicago.

It appeared on Europe ’72, one of that never-recorded-in-a-studio set of songs I’ve written about before. It was covered, memorably, by Levon Helm on his Electric Dirt album in 2009. From the Levon Helm official website:

Electric Dirt’s numerous high points start right at the top, with a rousing rendition of the Grateful Dead’s “Tennessee Jed.” Campbell and Williams spent a good part of 2008 on the road with Dead bassist Phil Lesh, including some shows on which Helm and Lesh appeared together. “There was some real comradeship going on,” Campbell points out, “so we thought, wouldn’t it be great if we could find a Grateful Dead tune that Levon could do? ‘Tennessee Jed’ was always one of my favorite Dead songs, and I thought Levon could actually be Tennessee Jed. And it fit like a glove.”

I love the music Garcia came up with for “Tennessee Jed.” The catchy descending motif, and then, in the solo, the wordless bridge that explodes into a brand-new space, right before our very ears. I never get tired of that. From Hunter’s description of the circumstances of composing the lyric, I get the feeling that the descending phrase might have been suggested by Hunter—he often, even mostly, it seems, composed his lyrics with music, which Garcia would then, most of the time, discard in order to start anew. (There are some notable exceptions, where Hunter’s music was retained--especially “It Must Have Been the Roses.” And “Easy Wind.”) It seems like a twangy little phrase that could’ve come along with the rhythm of the lyrics, and could have been suggested by the sound of a jaw harp.

Then there’s the rhythm, which falls into that “shuffle” category of Grateful Dead songs, an easygoing, gently bouncing kind of beat that is easy to move to, and suited to a variety of tempos. Sometimes the band seemed to be asking “just how slow can we play this one?” This is completely unscientific (a research project waiting to happen), but a spot check of playing times from various performances of the song over the years shows a variation from 7:15 to 8:40 in duration. Not all of that can be accounted for by extended jamming, since the jam was a fairly constant duration of measures, as far as I can tell without intense scrutiny. So I would attribute the wide disparity in playing times to a variation in tempo.

Finally, to me, this song is about wanting to go home. It’s one of many songs with that motif in the Dead’s repertoire, and is the subject of an essay by Wally Bubelis on the Annotated Lyrics website.

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Robert Hunter: “’Tennessee Jed’ originated in Barcelona, Spain. Topped up on vino tinto, I composed it aloud to the sound of a jaw harp twanged between echoing building faces by someone strolling half a block ahead of me in the late summer twilight.”

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Greatest Stories Ever Told - "Tennessee Jed"

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Robert Hunter: “’Tennessee Jed’ originated in Barcelona, Spain. Topped up on vino tinto, I composed it aloud to the sound of a jaw harp twanged between echoing building faces by someone strolling half a block ahead of me in the late summer twilight.”

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Robert Hunter: “’Tennessee Jed’ originated in Barcelona, Spain. Topped up on vino tinto, I composed it aloud to the sound of a jaw harp twanged between echoing building faces by someone strolling half a block ahead of me in the late summer twilight.”

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Living in St. Louis, MO, for my first Grateful Dead show in 1968, I always thought the band or Hunter drove around St. Louis and saw the aforementioned Bar-B-Que joints scattered around and therefore, the character of Tennessee Jed was implanted...now, it occurs to me that the Bar-B-Que joints could have been named after the radio show since, in 1968, these joints looked well-aged...FWIW

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I'm glad you mentioned Levon Helm's version of the song. His version, with the horns and all, is just spot on perfect. Once upon a time, at a local pub in my hometown, one of those small town neighborhood bars, I played Levon's version of this song and many people were blown away. Its one of those small, insignificant moments in my life but I always think about that when I hear the song.

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señor
We live on a higher plain
with your lyrics in our hearts & minds
hearing your tunes
our spirit's, cha cha, shimmy & boogaloo
when I contemplate this thought
what would our landscape
sound like now
if you did not take
your leap of faith
all those moons ago
in reverence I must say
god speed Hunter
live long
thank you
aloha
x
js

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first off, the Levon Helms version Rocks! The rich man steps on my poor head, when I get back better butter my bread, speaks of a hypocrite....I got stepped on at work, but my ole lady better have some good grub when i get home.....I always thought they were saying tend a sea. Like if you don't turn around and conversate with your neighbor, you're bound to wind up dead... tough song to play tight and right.

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History records that the very first "Tennessee Jed" in Tennessee itself was during the first set at a free concert on the Alumni Lawn at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, TN, on October 21, 1972. Among many other things, this was the last free concert in unconquered territory. "Europe '72" was being played on local FM radio, but it's likely few if any of the locals had heard the song prior to the concert.
Only a second set tape survives (Owsley's taping equipment was stolen after this show, accounting for the paucity of tapes after this date). As a result, we can't hear the audience response when the Dead must have surprised a Nashville audience of 15,000 by singing "Tennessee, Tennessee, ain't no place I'd rather be." But I'll bet it got a pretty good roar of approval.

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Two short comments:
Phil & Friends recently played the Capitol Theater with Larry and Teresa and I was extremely happy to be there. For the Friday night show they encored with Tennessee Jed ... Levon's version.
I always heard it as "I ran into Charlie Ford; he blacked my eye [etc.]." Of course, Charlie Ford is the rat who shot Jesse James in the back.

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Just heard this song for the first time - I'm listening to Europe '72. It's kind of weird in that this doesn't sound like a live album at all, not like Live Dead or Spring 1990. It took me a while to realize that's because there's no audience noise. It's really clean sounding and well-perfomed, but the lack of cheering and applause makes it sound more like a studio album. I wonder if that was a deliberate choice, or if it was a result of factors that I'm unaware of? Anybody?

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Don't know the specifics of why there is no audience sound on Europe '72, but that was the album that moved me away from the pop at the time (Grand Funk Railroad - Guess Who - Earth, Wind & Fire, etc) and started me on my long strange trip. I live in Macon GA, so the Allman Bros were big, and the Grateful Dead mixed in perfectly with long songs filled with virtuosic jams. The effect of the live event on the vibrancy of the sound (even without the audience) on songs like Tennessee Jed is what told me there was something different about this band. Thanks for reminding me of that.

Don't know the specifics of why there is no audience sound on Europe '72, but that was the album that moved me away from the pop at the time (Grand Funk Railroad - Guess Who - Earth, Wind & Fire, etc) and started me on my long strange trip. I live in Macon GA, so the Allman Bros were big, and the Grateful Dead mixed in perfectly with long songs filled with virtuosic jams. The effect of the live event on the vibrancy of the sound (even without the audience) on songs like Tennessee Jed is what told me there was something different about this band. Thanks for reminding me of that.

Worzit

2 years 6 months ago

Tennessee Jed

Just heard this song for the first time - I'm listening to Europe '72. It's kind of weird in that this doesn't sound like a live album at all, not like Live Dead or Spring 1990. It took me a while to realize that's because there's no audience noise. It's really clean sounding and well-perfomed, but the lack of cheering and applause makes it sound more like a studio album. I wonder if that was a deliberate choice, or if it was a result of factors that I'm unaware of? Anybody?

stoltzfus

4 years 7 months ago

tennessee jed is a song I like and dread at the same time

7/7/78 has a hot TJ
dropped four flights and cracked my spine (must have been really good)
honey come quick with the iodine (love that line)
some versions are very very slow

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